Chicago’s luxury housing market sets record

It’s already been a record year for Chicago’s luxury residential market — and 2021 has two months to go.

Some 75 homes sold for $4 million or more in the first 10 months, exceeding a previous record of 73 in 2018 and well ahead of the 50 to 60 that changed hands in prior years, Crain’s reported. The most recent was a four-bedroom condo on the 69th floor of the St. Regis Chicago that sold for $7 million on Oct. 29. Eight of the luxury condos sold in 2021 came at the St. Regis, which opened in December.

Agents say it’s all thanks to a booming stock market, low mortgage rate and the simple fact that buyers get more room for the buck in Chicago Well-placed stock market bets “generated a lot of expendable income for people who are interested,” Corcoran Urban Real Estate’s Matt Farrell told Crain’s.

Affluent suburban empty nesters who struggled to sell their big homes during the pandemic are now able to sell them fast to move downtown, said Chezi Rafaeli, a Coldwell Banker agent who represented both sides of a $5.1 million condo sold last week in Lincoln Park. The home was listed for more than $5.7 million in 2018.

Instead of cash, buyers are stepping up to mortgage rates so low they’re akin to “free money,” Rafaeli told Crain’s. “Why would you not tap that?”

Eleven of the 20 priciest sales were condos downtown and six were in Lincoln Park. Only three were outside the city.

[Crain’s]